The Hounds of Hades
by spymastery
Summary: Madelaine was the daughter of a chemist who left a trail of blood from Opelousas to Valentine. Charlotte was bought by a gambler and left widowed three months after she arrived in Saint Denis. Juniper watched a bounty hunter burn her ranch with her father's money in his pocket. Anger burns inside of their bellies, and Dutch van der Linde is of a mind to let those flames loose.
1. Madelaine I

Gossip spread through the Saints Hotel in Valentine like feathers through a chicken coop, especially when the hens were spooked.

Madelaine Vallières stretched across the mattress, pressing one of her knees down onto the bed in order to tuck the sheet beneath the end. Above her, she heard the quiet swish of flat feet on the floorboards. They weren't allowed to wear heeled shoes to work, not when there were treasured customers sleeping all around them. The whispers were louder than the incessant back and forth through the hallways.

There were new men in town, the whispers said. Or, at least, that's what she could assume from what she heard in passing. Bits and pieces of murmured words weren't difficult to sew into something that made sense.

Lifting one of the pillows, Madelaine busied herself with fluffing the feathers inside.

There weren't just new men in town. They were different from the usual.

Valentine had enough traffic running through it that they saw plenty of business. The Saints Hotel never hurt for new customers, and those living in the vicinity liked the girls enough that they'd pay the money for a bath on occasion, even if they didn't really have the means.

Madelaine hadn't caught a glimpse of the first one who came through, but she had her ear bent five times by the girls she worked with the night before. Each of them had another good thing to say about his rich voice and his rough, but gentle nature. The one who scrubbed him down — an older woman called Viola — said his name was Arthur, and that they weren't staying too far out of town for the time being.

"He certainly was a handsome thing," Viola continued, one of her aching feet kicked up on the low rim of a washing basin. She fanned at the dark, glistening skin of her chest. "What a fine jaw. And his eyes? Oh, Lord."

She set the pillow down and reached for the second. The bedding had been warmed by the sun pouring in through the tall window, and through the glass, she could see a few of the stores across the way, as well as the men, women, and horses who traveled back and forth through the path that cut through the middle of Valentine like a belt.

There weren't many handsome men in those parts.

They weren't to her taste, at least, having grown up deep in the South where men dressed fine and spent most of their time indoors to keep out of the humidity. When she thought of a good-looking man, the picture of an old friend of her family's came to mind — a man, tall as anything, with a thick black beard shot through with gray and a laugh smoky as whiskey.

The owner of the Saints wasn't bad on the eyes. He had a gentle nature to him, but she liked a bit of fire, as well.

Maybe she was just too picky.

"Not the time," Madelaine muttered to herself with a laugh like she couldn't quite believe where her mind was going. "You got beds to make, and dirty men to wash. Think about that, why don't you?"

Dropping the pillow down where it was meant to lay, she smoothed her hands over the gunmetal gray of her skirt and straightened her back. Even after only a few hours of work, she could feel herself tremble with the effort it took to keep herself upright. There were only a few other girls who worked there who suffered as she did, all thanks to the weight they were carrying up front.

A nasty curse was what her mama left to her — a weak back and breasts the size of damned melons — but it was better to think about that than the handsome cowboys and likely outlaws who were living outside of Valentine.

Her work kept her fed, though there wasn't much in the way of variety and she missed the food she grew up with something horrible. Her work kept a roof over her head, though it wasn't much of one and leaked when the rains got heavy. Her work kept her happily busy, though there was the occasional mislaid hand that left her spitting mad.

Madelaine looked from the perfectly folded sheets to the emptied commode to the landscape painting that hung on the wall. Everything seemed to be in place for the next person who'd pass through. There was even a cluster of buttercups in a green-glass vase on the chest of drawers, their petals as pretty as the bedding.

The Saints Hotel wasn't the finest hotel in all of America, but the people who visited weren't looking for that or willing to pay those prices. It looked nice enough in Madelaine's eyes, however.

Picking up the basket she'd dropped at the foot of the bed, the one full of folded sheets and pillow cases and candles meant to freshen any otherwise stale-smelling rooms, she left with every intention of moving on to the next unoccupied chamber to do the same. Work wasn't the same every day, but setting up recently vacated rooms was one of the easiest tasks on offer. It was better than doing the washing or cleaning out the commodes, better than giving baths and washing hair.

It was lonely work, but the hotel was never quiet enough for that feeling of being alone to sneak up on her more than once or twice a week.

Just as soon as Madelaine opened the door, she found herself face-to-face with one of the other girls who worked with her.

Evelyn was a tiny little thing, with dark hair that fell in straight sheets on either side of her heart-shaped face. "We need another set of hands," she said, "and everybody else is already indisposed."

Madelaine lifted the basket in her arms. "What do you think this is?"

Evelyn set her own basket on the floor before taking Madelaine's without issue, setting it on top of her own before lifting them both up. She was strong for how small she was. They all were. "It's mine now, Maddie. Now, are you gonna listen?"

An edge of impatience clung to every word. Madelaine knew better than to push her.

"Yes, Evelyn. I'm gonna to listen."

"Mister Hughes needs you upstairs in the third bathing room." The directions were short and to the point. She wanted more details in order to be better prepared, but she'd already demanded too much of Evelyn's time and wasted too much of her own. Apparently. "The gentleman paid the extra fifty cents for the oil, too, so be sure to bring that in."

 _The oil_ was a clouded glass bottle of bath oil brought in from London, and it was the most expensive thing in the hotel save for the furnishings. Mister Hughes could only afford one scent at a time. The one they kept in a locked cabinet on the ground floor smelled of bergamot and lily of the valley.

Madelaine thumbed over the tiny key hanging from her belt by a lilac-colored ribbon and nodded. She hated leaving her work half-finished, but sending Evelyn into a fury that might just as well bring the hotel down around them wasn't the better option. Any fool would know that.

"Thank you for taking up the rest of the rooms," she offered with a smile. That seemed to diffuse a little of the young woman's tense nature. "I'll be up with him in a moment."

They parted ways there. Evelyn tucked into one of the nearby rooms while Madelaine made her way down to the end of the hallway and the closet space where they kept the things that might've inspired a burglary if they were kept up front by the desk. After unlocking the cabinet where Mister Hughes kept his oldest and strongest liquors beside the bath oil from Penhalgion's, she removed one of the smaller, unmarked bottles of the oil and returned the lock to its place.

A quick glance into the mirror that sat on the cabinet confirmed that she looked just fine, that her hair was in place and her lips were soft and pink. Little more than that mattered in her line of work. Men rarely noticed the state of her skin so much as they noticed other things, other things that were also carefully pinned away behind her corset and high-necked blouse.

It wasn't often that men paid the extra money to take the oil in their water. Most just paid for the water and the brushing. Fewer still liked to talk, but those were her favorite. There was nothing more painfully boring than scrubbing down a man who didn't even talk to you, not even opening his mouth to thank you. She hoped the man behind the door would prove to be as charming as his tastes were expensive.

As she made her way through the straight hallways of the hotel, Madelaine brushed shoulders with a handful of familiar men and the even more numerous women who worked alongside her. Only when she saw Viola did she reach out to stop one of them. Her arms were reddened from hot water halfway up to her elbows, but it was the tired way she smiled that told Madelaine more about the bath she'd just finished giving.

"Could you tell Harvey to bring up a few buckets of hot water?" she asked, unable to keep the pleading note from her voice. "The third bathing room, upstairs, if you don't mind."

"Oh, darlin', I don't mind."

Madelaine gave her wrist a gentle squeeze. "Thank you," she said, the bottle of oil warming in her other palm. "Thank you, thank you."

The older woman's laugh was sweet and goading. She freed herself from Madelaine's grip before tossing that same hand at and past her in the direction of the stairwell that led up to the second floor. "Go on, pretty girl. You got a gentleman waiting. Get."

Madelaine lifted her skirts with one hand as she took the stairs, quick but not two at a time. If she took a tumble, it would be bad enough to break an arm or leg. Shattering one of Mister Hughes's bottles of bath oil would be taken out of her pay… for about six months. Nevermind that the creaking and heavy footfalls would wake everyone who didn't sleep like the dead.

She mounted the last stair and let her skirt fall from her hand before tucking a lock of blonde hair behind her ear. There was a few yards between her and the door that led to the third bathing room, just enough of a distance to catch her breath before entering.

There was nothing pretty about huffing and puffing on someone who paid good money to get washed.

Madelaine took quiet, even steps as she inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. Every time she forced herself to deepen her breaths, her ribs ached a little. She patted a hand down over the fabric of her blouse, fingertips sliding over the rigid lines of featherbone.

By the time she reached the door, Madelaine had more than caught her breath. Her knuckled rapped against the door — a precaution to make sure the gentleman was in a comfortable state before she entered. There was no response, so a careful assumption was made. She twisted the doorknob and pushed the heavy wooden door open.

Every bathing room looked the same, give or take a few details that were hardly noticeable to anyone who didn't spend their lives in them. There was a large slipper tub in the very center, half-wood and half-tin, with a copper tray stretched across it. Behind the bathtub was a privacy screen covered in an almost fancy cream and brown brocade pattern. There was a hanger for clothes the customer didn't need cleaned and a washing basin made of polished pine wood, complete with a small, standing mirror and a complete shaving kit.

A man stood at the basin in the middle of washing his face. He was stripped down to his waist, baring a muscular back that was covered in dark beauty marks and moles and the occasional freckle. His skin was the color of cream where it wasn't bruised or scarred or darkened from sun damage.

"Good afternoon," Madelaine greeted him, turning to shut the door without so much as doing a double take. "The water will be up in a moment, sir."

He made a sound of recognition before dragging both of his damp hands through his hair. It was black as soot and hung down near the nape of his neck, almost to his shoulders. There was a softness to the way the ends feathered out against his skin.

Madelaine couldn't help but notice how clean he was, like he'd already been seen to.

When he turned around, she finally did that double take. The man standing in front of her didn't look like anyone in Valentine. Not even the occasional well-to-do traveler didn't look quite so fine. There was something damn near regal about him as he stood there, thick-waisted and nonchalant, staring right at her as she stared at him.

"And what would your name be, miss?"

Madelaine wet her lips, both hands curling around the bottle of bath oil. "Madelaine," she said.

"Mad-uh-lain," he repeated, nodding as he wiped his damp face with a hand towel. Rather than just tossing it aside, he folded the square of fabric neatly before setting it on the table that stood beside the tub. "You pronounce it differently than I'm familiar with — Mad-uh-line?"

The air in the room was still warm and slightly humid from the last person who came through needing a bath, but the road carried too much of a smell to open one of the windows.

"I'm not from around here," she offered him, moving around the foot of the tub to set the bath oil beside the lamp that flickered on that same table. While she was there, she turned the burner down lower. The golden light dimmed a little, flickering against the clouded glass. "I come from Louisiana originally."

"Ah, yes. That's the accent."

Madelaine shot him a small smile. "May I have your name, too?"

The man stilled for a moment, as if some inner conflict took him, but it only took a moment for the victor to rise to the surface. The corner of his broad mouth tucked upward in a smile of his own. "You may call me Dutch, Miss Madelaine."

Most people struggled with her name, or just gave up and called her Madeline.

He didn't.

Just as Madelaine opened her mouth to ask him about himself, there was a knock at the door. She rushed over and opened it, knowing Harvey would be carrying two heavy buckets of hot water for the bath. And there he was, huffing and puffing twice as hard as she had, all splotchy red cheeks and windblown brown hair.

"Thank you, Harvey."

She took the buckets one by one, carrying them with both hands over to the bath and emptying them with some effort. Harvey gave her a flustered smile and nodded to Dutch before leaving them be. She lifted a key from the belt at her waist and locked the door behind him.

Steam curled up off of the water, even in a room that was already so warm. It was the perfect temperature for the oil, though she wasn't convinced he wouldn't scald himself by getting in right then. She dealt with overeager costumers more often than she cared to, but Dutch didn't seem like that sort of man.

Maybe he'd surprise her.

"How long have you been in these parts?" Madelaine asked as she removed the stopper from the unmarked bottle of oil. She held it out to him, a precaution to make sure he even cared for the stuff. Watching as he sniffed the contents, her teeth snagged at her bottom lip to keep from smiling. "I haven't seen you around before."

"That might very well be because we haven't been around." The response didn't carry any details, but there was enough for her to pick up on things. He was new in town, and he wasn't alone. Most men traveled by themselves if they were passing through on business. They didn't use 'we,' either, which was what gave Madelaine the idea that he might be one of those outlaws staying outside of Valentine. "We've only been in the area for a week or so. Valentine is a nice enough town."

Before she could respond, he nodded at the bottle of bath oil. "Quality stuff. I'm impressed."

Madelaine chuckled. "It'll leave your skin feeling like silk and smelling like a buncha oranges," she told him as she dropped a decent amount of the oil into the water. Once the bottle was stoppered and kept where no stray limb might upturn it, she sat down upon the rim of the tub and began swirling her hand around in the water in order to get all of it mixed. "Do you like oranges, Mr. Dutch?"

"Please, just Dutch."

When she lifted her head in his direction, Dutch was working open the heavy-looking silver buckle of his belt, revealing even more of the dense, black hair that trailed down from his navel. There wasn't a day of working that she could remember when she hadn't seen three or four naked men, sometimes more. But there was something about Dutch that separated him from the men who paid the extra fifty cents for a lady to bathe them.

He didn't ask for privacy, but she gave it to him when her cheeks swam suddenly with warmth, forcing her to duck her head.

"For what it's worth, I do enjoy the occasional orange," Dutch told her. Then, from the sound of it, he removed one boot and then another, setting them down beside the basin with a quiet jangle of spurs. "There's all that 'apple a day' nonsense, when you're better off chewing on citrus to keep yourself from falling to scurvy."

With his boots off, all that was left was his trousers and underthings. Madelaine swirled her forefinger through the water as she waited for him to finish up. The water was smooth and nearly hot enough to make her draw her hand back.

"Would you like me to put in the soap flakes, too? For bubbles?" she asked without glancing back at him.

"No bubbles, Miss Madelaine." Her ears perked up, listening to the ruffle of him folding his trousers and the quiet thump of his feet on the floorboards as he removed his britches. "I don't much care for them."

From what Viola said the night before, her customer had been a sweet-natured man. He made quiet conversation, thanked her for her work, and smiled when she planted a motherly kiss on the top of his head. Dutch seemed to be the same sort of man. The outlaws living outside of Valentine didn't seem much like the blood-thirsty marauders she'd been warned about so often.

Dutch was almost genteel. It was a nice change from the people she tended to most days.

Madelaine stood as Dutch took his first step into the water, waiting until he submerged himself up to the waist to twist around and begin her work. Where the water sloshed against his skin, the creamy color was left a bright pink. If the bath was too hot for him, he made no complaints. He didn't hop right out of the water, either, as men with thinner skin were likely to do, leaving the floorboards all wet and dripping down to the bathing room below.

"How is the temperature?" she asked. If prompted, she could add some tepid water in to even things out a bit. "Feel nice?"

"The streams of New Hanover are still ice cold, Miss Madelaine." Dutch tipped his head back, resting the crown of it against the rim of the bath. He sank a ways down into the water, one hand on his knee and the other covering his manhood. "Water this hot is a heavenly blessing."

He shut his eyes. Only then did Madelaine notice how long and thick his eyelashes were. Like a cow's, really.

"We've got two types of soap on offer." Madelaine reached for the wooden box that sat beside the oil lamp and flipped open its cover revealing two bars of differing sizes. One was much smaller than the other, having been more frequently chosen during the past few weeks. "One's cinnamon, the other's honey."

Dutch cracked an eye open to get a look at the box of soap. The smaller of them was a pale golden color, almost the same shade as Madelaine's hair. Yellower still was the other bar. It smelled strongly of cinnamon, though there were sharp, spicy notes in both of them.

"I'll take the cinnamon," he murmured without lifting his hand from the water to point at the larger of the two bars.

Madelaine busied herself after that, rubbing the bar of soap into a lather in her dampened hands and smoothing her palms up over Dutch's broad shoulders. His skin was already soft, and the bath oil would only leave him feeling softer. She knew that from experience. Felt like she was wearing gloves for days after someone requested the stuff.

With every tender press of her hands, she felt Dutch shift under her touch. He sighed more than he talked, not that he sat in the sort of uncomfortable silence she had to deal with sometimes. If he was traveling on horseback, there was no wonder that he was sore.

She dragged her fingers down one of his arms and massaged the cinnamon soap deep into his tense muscles. And God, he was tense. There wasn't an inch of him that didn't tremble before giving way to her hands.

"How do you find Valentine?" Madelaine found herself asking to fill the room's quiet. Outside in the hallway, there was always someone talking or walking back and forth or snoring so loud you'd think the roof would cave in. It never did, but sometimes, the china that Mister Hughes kept in reception shook under a particularly firm footfall. "Do y'all plan on staying long?"

Again, she was met with the lingering hush of confrontation. Dutch worked his jaw, wet his lips, then told her: "We'll stay in these parts for as long as we can, but I don't think it'll be forever."

His chest rose and fell with a chuckle.

"We aren't usually that lucky."

Madelaine was glad that his willingness to reveal small truths was so strong. She hated it when men turned on her or snapped for her to shut up when she was just asking them simple questions. She could deal with someone asking her to focus on their bath, but when they raised their voice, something inside of her shriveled up.

She stood, shifting onto the rim of the bath again. The band of tin around the bathtub was thick enough to not be much of a pain, but she was used to balancing on it anyway. Taking his hand in both of hers, she began to wash over his callused palms and nails. They were relatively clean, just like the rest of him, but there was nothing wrong with being thorough. That's what he paid for, after all.

"You said you were from Louisiana," Dutch murmured. His voice sank back in his throat, sounding sticky as honey. "Have you ever been down to Saint Denis?"

Madelaine snorted before she could stop herself; the sound was full of bile. She curled her long, skinny fingers around his in surprise, turning to apologize only to see that his face was scrunched up in a laugh.

"Oh, you _are_ from Louisiana, aren't you?" His laugh softened into a chuckle. "That was the reaction of a native."

Madelaine dunked Dutch's hand into the water to wash away the suds that lingered between his fingers. Only once the skin was clear did she give it back to him, opening her hands for the other. "May I speak frankly?"

Dutch removed his hand from his upper thigh and settled it into her open, waiting palms.

"Miss Madelaine, I would like nothing more."

"Saint Denis is a cesspit, and this is coming from a woman who's worked in Valentine for near five years." She lathered up another bit of soap before palming the sweet-smelling suds over his skin. It was already softer than before thanks to the bath oil. He smelled of oranges and cinnamon and a little bit of honey. There was no doubt in her mind that some woman back at his camp would take a bite out of him once he got back, looking all fresh and smelling so handsome. "I'd take horse manure up to my ankles over having to wash some _couillon_ Frenchman who thinks he's better than me."

Again, Dutch laughed, but that time, it was even louder. He was bound to wake someone, but she didn't mind, even if Mister Hughes would bluster at her later for encouraging such behavior in a patron.

Madelaine liked his laugh.

It wasn't condescending. It didn't make her feel as if she was being made fun of or mocked for her commentary. That much was new to her, and she found herself wanting to crack him up again.

Letting his other hand off in the water, Madelaine stood from the rim of the tub.

"Is there anything else you'd like me to wash, or would you'd rather handle it?" she asked him, leaning over his shoulder with a water-warm hand poised just there. Water dripped from her fingertips, trailing over the curves of his chest.

Most men preferred washing their more delicate parts on their own. The Saints Hotel wasn't a brothel, after all, and if it was, they wouldn't offer a tug for a measly fifty cents a go. The women of the hotel were there to care for those who passed through, to scrub their backs and make conversation and give people who longed for the simple, comforting touch of another what they wanted.

Dutch proved to be one of those men. Once she handed him a towel and the cinnamon soap, Madelaine turned her attention to his clothing.

"Would you like these laundered?" she asked over her shoulder. "Mister Hughes charges twenty-five cents for it, but considering all that you've paid today, that'll likely cover it."

Dutch made a thoughtful noise as he shifted in the bath. She heard him moving the soap from palm to palm and smiled to herself when she heard him take a deep breath of the scent. He'd be back. She could tell in the slow way he savored everything that he'd be back before long. That was a good feeling.

"Yes, ma'am," he said once he set the soap down on the copper tray, hands sinking down into the water. "I would like that very much. You wouldn't have something to save my clothes from the dust on the road, would you?"

Madelaine felt a tickle of laughter in her throat, but settled for a smile, one he could likely hear in her voice. "Sorry, sir, but we don't have anything like that on offer. You might could find a poncho at the general store."

"A poncho?" Dutch hummed around a chuckle. "I do not believe I could pull one off, Miss Madelaine."

Once she had his clothes folded into a neat, careful little pile, Madelaine brought them to her chest. Dutch was still washing himself as she passed by, glancing up from his work to meet her eyes.

"I'll go and bring these down so someone'll get started on washing them. Do you mind?"

Dutch lifted a hand. Every part of him that had been submerged into the bath was pink as a piglet, and even the parts of him that hadn't touched the hot water were slowly warming up, filling with a similar color. There was little of him that hadn't been touched by a flush — not his hairy chest or his throat or his cheeks. "I do not mind, no."

With the lock undone and the door shut, Madelaine took a moment to stand in the narrow hallway that led between half a dozen rooms on the second floor. A rug stretched underfoot, making her footfalls even more quiet as she hurried down to the stairwell and then down the stairs themselves.

She was so distracted by the idea of getting back, in fact, that she nearly ran into Harvey, who was carting another pair of buckets down to one of the bathing rooms on the first floor. The surprise pulled a gasp out of her, but didn't upturn the buckets. She was grateful for that much.

After giving Harvey a flurry of apologies, Madelaine rushed past him and down the stone stairwell at the back of the hotel to the small building on the far side of the yard where everyone did their washing. It was painted the same color as the Saints, but was a little shabbier when it came to upkeep. No one really bothered with upkeep when it was nothing but someplace to wash clothes and bedding.

Two massive wooden buckets sat in the middle of the room. One was full of bright yellow sheets while the other was blessedly unoccupied. On the far side of the hutch stood the stove that was used for warming water, as well as a chest full of soaps and sodas for washing. Perched on one of the four stools surrounding the buckets was one of the younger girls who worked there, her blue-black hair done up in a tighter bun than what was in style.

Ngoc didn't stop stirring the sheets through the soap even when she looked up to see who entered. Upon noticing Madelaine, she managed a tiny smile.

She wasn't alone. Viola was there, resting in between shifts, and Iris leaned against one of the cabinets, looking bored rather than tired. It wasn't difficult to pick out who she'd ask to wash and dry Dutch's things.

"Iris," Madelaine called, getting the woman's attention without issue. Keeping it would be the problem. "Can you do me a favor?"

Iris was a short young woman with even shorter hair and an often insolent expression. Mister Hughes had very nearly fired her more times than Madelaine could remember, but he never quite got to that point. He was a bit of a pushover, after all, and Iris could be a little frightening.

"Maybe," Iris said, though she didn't move. "Why can't you do it?"

Viola rapped her on the shoulder with her bony knuckles. "Don't be a pill, girl. Everyone's busy 'cept you. You might as well earn your keep for once."

Madelaine set the pile of clothes on one of the stools and shot Ngoc a small smile of her own, ducking out of the hutch right as Iris launched into a tirade about the ungrateful Mister Hughes. She followed the planks of wood that made a trail across the muddy yard, skirts rucked up higher than was decent to avoid getting them dirty.

By the time she reached Dutch, he was finished his bathing. Someone had come by in the time that she'd been gone and offered him a drink, something colored like honey from the locked cabinet on the first floor.

He swirled the drink around in the glass and looked up at her from beneath heavy lids. Never before had she seen a man look so comfortable.

"How long should it be?" he asked her as she locked busied herself with locking the door. He took a short sip from his drink and sucked in a breath when it burned him right back. "I was planning on meeting up with someone in an hour or two."

Madelaine considered loads of clothes and bedding that Ngoc and Iris and the others had to contend with. Then, she thought of Dutch and his 'hour or two.'

"You and Mister Hughes are about the same size," she said, moving over to the basin and pulling out the drawer to reveal another, milder bar of soap. "I could go down and borrow one of his suits for you until your clothes are ready."

Dutch didn't respond immediately. He never seemed to be quick on the draw when it came to his words, as if he was weighing them before introducing them to his tongue.

"That sounds fine, Miss Madelaine," he said after an extended bit of quiet. "Will they be finished by nightfall, at least?"

They would be finished long before nightfall — cleaned and dried and pressed in about four hours, as long as they didn't get even busier in the meantime. She picked up the bar from the basin and turned towards him again, pausing for a moment to watch as he ran his fingers through his hair before setting down his glass on the copper tray.

Dutch was almost too good-looking in her eyes. No man could be that handsome and have a good heart. It just wasn't fair to the men around him.

"They'll be finished by nightfall," she assured him as she returned to the rim of the tub, dunking the bar of soap into the water.

The tub managed to hold in most of the heat, but after a bath, it was more warm than hot. He didn't seem to mind, though. Didn't ask for the bathtub to be refilled. Didn't tell her to hurry. He just sat there and watched her with steady brown eyes, and she let herself focus on the suds.

"Thank you for this, Miss Madelaine. It has been a _long_ , long time since I last indulged in something that felt as fine as this." Dutch leaned forward as she bid him, offering his hair to her for washing. "I wager I'll be back before long."

"Madelaine," she said softly, her words as light as the orange-scented bubbles that clung to her fingers. "Just Madelaine."

She could hear the smile in his laugh. She could hear the whiskey in it, too.


	2. Juniper I

Smithfield's couldn't have looked more like a typical saloon.

There was a piano pushed up against one of the wallpapered walls and a bull's skull hanging right near the entrance. A few tables were scattered around the area, same as a few chairs. Their wood wasn't polished or finished in any way, just cut and smoothed over to avoid any nasty splinters. The biggest, brightest, shiniest thing in the whole place was the bar itself, which could probably serve upwards of a dozen people without a brawl breaking out over elbows.

Juniper half-expected to see some dark-eyed stranger with his boots kicked up on one of the rough chairs, hat pulled down over his eyes and jaw working around a mouthful of tobacco. Or some girl with rouge up to her ears and a skirt twice as broad as she was hitched over her thigh.

But those were all stories, assumptions made by people who'd never traveled as far west as Valentine, and she'd lived in these parts for long enough to know better.

The batwing doors swung shut behind her as she entered.

Two men at the bar glanced over in her direction — one she recognized, but the other was a stranger. A barber at the back looked up from his straight razor, desperate for custom, only to look away when he realized she wouldn't be sitting in his chair. Men wore their beards long in Valentine, and most women just trimmed their own hair. She did, at least. The ragged ends proved that.

Poor guy.

The man tending the bar looked up from his work and raised a hand to her in greeting. She gave him a nod that was pure courtesy as she made her way over to the two men who had only recently been served considering the amount of drink in their glasses. John Marston couldn't keep a full glass for more than five minutes, and even that was pushing it.

But he was distracted from his whiskey by whatever he was discussing with the young man in front of him. The well-dressed young man. The one who was gesturing more than talking.

The look on John's face said he wasn't listening.

"I hear the stew here's better than Pearson's," Juniper said, leaning against the bar on John's opposite side. He didn't bother turning towards her, but she knew he was listening. "Man at Worths couldn't say enough good things about it. Kept ramblin' 'bout the quality of the meat."

With the way the bartender's ears flared up a pretty red color, she wasn't sure what he'd meant by that. Not anymore, at least.

John chuckled low in his throat, lifting his glass and swirling its amber-colored contents around in a neat cyclone.

"I'd say the drinks aren't bad, neither, but…"

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Stranger or not, apologizing for interrupting the consumption of liquor meant he might be worth their time. As a diversion, if nothing else. "It's only that I have a certain interest in scars. I have on, you see. Right here!"

He tugged at his collar, revealing a nasty, knotted scar that curled down from his jaw to the nape of his neck. Whatever gave him that could have very well killed him. He was lucky. Or, maybe, he'd escaped fate by the skin of his teeth.

"I was telling this man about the wolves," John murmured. He lifted his glass to his mouth and took a healthy mouthful of whiskey. His cheeks trembled when he swallowed. "About how I almost got mauled and all."

"Almost?" Juniper gave a snort of a laugh and leaned even more heavily against the bar. "You got mauled."

She remembered the fuss that became of the camp when Arthur and Javier brought John back to what amounted to home in Colter. Half of them thought he was for sure going to catch a fever and die, but the cleverer folks knew he'd make it if the wounds were cared for.

Juniper didn't have any way to help out with John. She couldn't fix him up, didn't know how to clean him up, and was bad at keeping him company when he was already miserable. All she could do was focus on the pelts of those wolves that damn near killed one of her best friends. The fur wasn't even that good, but she still cleaned them proper. Sold them for a few dollars once they were able to move on.

"Yeah, well…" John took another swallow of whiskey. "Where's Arthur?"

"Worths. He's still puttin' in our order," Juniper said absently as she looked over the bottles lining the wall. She wanted something, but didn't like buying liquor from strangers. Her thirst would have to wait. Unless… "John, look here."

He angled himself towards her, an unkempt brow raised in question. The atmosphere of the saloon had him too disarmed to keep her from snatching up his glass of whiskey and draining a finger out of it. It was strong stuff, with a burn like a kick to the nose. She gritted her teeth for a moment before letting go of a sigh that was almost blissful.

"Thanks."

"Well, it's no problem at all, Miss Juniper," John drawled, setting his glass on the bar with a _clunk_ and gesturing for the bartender to fill it again. "I wasn't planning on drinking all of that anyway."

Juniper rolled her eyes and kicked the toe of her boot gently against the floor.

The man standing to John's left watched them both, rapt with attention. From what she could tell, he was just passing through Valentine. Probably from somewhere on the East Coast. His suit was dusty around the legs, but otherwise clean. The beard he wore was tightly trimmed, too. And men wore their beards long in Valentine.

"You've got a thing for scars, do you?" she asked him without making any kind of direct eye contact. "I've got one I could show you."

"Come on, June…"

The stranger stood up a little straighter, his interest piqued. "Oh! Yes, ma'am, but only if you're of a mind to let me see."

Juniper pulled herself up onto her feet properly, moving away from the bar so he could get a better look at her as she tugged her coat off of her left shoulder. Her shirt was loose enough at the neck for her to do the same, baring the scarred skin of her upper arm. The skin was heavily freckled, but between the dusty brown dots were lines of bright red that feathered off in every direction starting at her collarbone and disappearing down her back and the bunched up sleeve of her jacket.

She'd gotten a lot of different reactions from it in the past. Reverend Swanson swore she'd outlive them all, that a woman who'd gotten struck by lightning and survived was meant to last through anything. Jack thought it was strange, and when she went without a coat, he'd follow the reddened lines with his tiny fingertips.

Strangers weren't often so kind. Most told her that she shouldn't have lived past that. They told her she was unnatural.

To the man's credit, all he did was gasp at first. Then, he reached out and adjusted her coat back onto her shoulder. Which was enough to show her that he was _definitely_ not from Valentine.

"How on God's green Earth did you get a scar like that, Miss June?"

"Juniper," she corrected him, not unkindly. "And I didn't get it 'cause of God. Zeus himself did this to me. Threw a bolt'a lightning down when I was at my lowest. Some kinda recompense for my lifestyle, I suppose."

John tipped his glass back to get the last swallow of whiskey. When he spoke, his voice ran thin as a windblown sheet. "I never heard anything that more soundly said, 'Fuck you and your strong-willed nature.'"

"Didn't work." Juniper pursed her lips, smiling.

Both John and the stranger laughed at that, though the sounds were mightily different. Marston laughed like he had gravel rattling around in his guts, but the stranger's laugh was quieter and more than a little nervous. Tinny as a bell. It was a true 'hah hah… hah' laugh if she'd ever heard one.

"So, what's your name?" she asked, tapping her fingers one by one against the smooth, dark wood of the bar. "We're at a disadvantage here."

"Harris," said Mister Harris. "Abraham Harris."

John watched the bartender take his glass. Juniper kept her eyes on him, too, rather than the recently introduced man beside them both. He dunked the glass into a basin full of water before wiping it clean with a long white rag and returning it to its brothers high on a shelf.

"And what brings you to Valentine, Mister Harris?"

"I'm traveling for business," he said, sounding so genuine that neither Juniper nor John had it in their hearts to doubt him. That was a city boy, and there was no mistaking him for anything else. "Valentine is a nice enough town, isn't it? Are you locals?"

John straightened his back out, though he still leaned both hands against the bar. There was a shade of impatience in how he stood there, one of his sun-damaged hands tapping out a beat against the bar.

"No, we're just passing through. Same as you." He glanced in Juniper's direction. "Dutch was supposed to be here by now. Arthur, too."

Juniper cast a slow look around the bar. It was quiet, even in the afternoon. If the saloon was quiet, there had to be nothing of note going on in the town itself. Otherwise, the place would've been swimming in gossip, and they'd be dodging fists already.

"You think there's trouble, sir?" She pitched her voice up a little, making herself sound as helpless as she could. John was already laughing and shaking his head by the time she finished her first question. "Maybe you and I should go and help? They're twenty minutes late, so they _must_ be dead."

For the first time in a while, John was too amused with her to punch back.

Abraham Harris piped up in the wake of his lack of response. He not-so-subtly mirrored John's stance and leaned over the bartop to catch her eyes, then catch John's. "If you're meant to meet someone here, I could give you your privacy!"

Both Juniper and John responded, but not in unison.

His reply was a quiet, "Please," while Juniper said, "Oh, it's no trouble."

But the city boy was more keen on listening to Mister Marston, so he nodded and bid his farewells and finished his drink. The whiskey blanched him of all color before filling up his cheeks with an uneven red. Then, he was gone.

From what she could tell, his spirits were still high. That was nice enough.

Juniper and John stood in companionable silence for some time. He didn't have any more questions about Dutch or Arthur, and she didn't have anymore answers. That was the best thing about being friends with a man like John Marston. He only talked overmuch when he was agitated.

The bartender stepped out from behind the bar and reached for a broom. Whatever dirt clung to the floorboards wasn't there from through traffic as much was there because the doors didn't fully shut, letting in all manner of cold air and dirt from the road. Still, he swept everything up with the quiet swish of broom bristles against the floor.

There was a squeak on the other side of the room, which only turned out to be the barber sitting in his chair and giving it a slow, teetering spin. Never before had she seen a man so thoroughly bored with his life.

And in that lull, Arthur Morgan pushed through the swinging saloon doors.

The first words out of his mouth were predictable as anything. "Where's Dutch?"

"Good to see you, too, Arthur," John groused at him, but there was a smile on his broad, skinny mouth. "You wanna drink?"

Arthur lifted his hat off of his head with one hand and smoothed his straw blond hair down over his head with the other. His footfalls landed right in the path the bartender took with his broom, leaving prints of dirt on the floor. Juniper saw a flicker of frustration on the man's face before he leaned his broom against a chair and returned to his place behind the bar.

"No, I don't want no drink," Arthur said just as the man stepped up in front of him. "What I want is for you to tell me where he is."

He glanced away from John's face and looked at Juniper instead. She shrugged. "He didn't tell me nothin'. All I knew was I had to get gun oil."

John's shoulders hitched forward, curling over his hands where they lay flat against the bar's top. He hesitated before lifting his fingers for another drink of the same. Two and a half glasses of whiskey was a lot for him, but he wasn't alone.

It'd be easy enough to pile John into the carriage, anyhow.

"Dutch went to the Saints," he said. "Said he'd be back in an hour and some."

That was all the answer either of them needed. If Dutch went to the Saints, it was for a bath. He didn't have any reason to rent a room, and his taste for the finer things often led him in the direction of such establishments. You can't feel too fancy when you're dipping your ass in a stream to get clean most of the time.

Arthur let go of a sharp sigh before leaning against the bar beside John, elbows poised on the wood. "Figures he'd make us wait."

"I've been waiting for you, too, you know."

"Nobody asked you," Arthur said as he waved the bartender over. "Beer, please."

The bartender stood before Arthur, bottle of whiskey in-hand, and asked, "Ale or lager?" He looked tired, but the day was still ahead of everyone there. What they made of that day lay squarely on Dutch's shoulders.

"Lager."

Leaning back away from the bartop, John let go of a sigh long enough to follow the curve of his arched back. His hair fell away from his face, revealing his still-healing wounds. There was three days of growth on his jaw and dark circles under his eyes. No one was sleeping well at Horseshoe Overlook, not yet. Nobody except the Reverend, but his peaceful rest was aided by generous amounts of booze.

They were all laying in wait, a dozen coiled rattlers. Every breath they took sounded like the same shake of a tail; it was the warning of people backed up against a wall.

Dutch was the worst of them all when it came to sleeping. The lamp burned in his tent at almost all hours, no matter how much Miss O'Shea fussed and complained. He haunted that wood, a single light burning in the darkness like an all-seeing eye.

The bartender set Arthur's beer down in front of him and then disappeared back behind the stairwell, likely to get things started for dinner. It was getting to be that hour, after all, and the saloon just smelled of dirt and alcohol. Outside, the through traffic was picking up as people left their businesses behind for the night, filling the air with the sounds of conversation and the nickering of passing horses.

Before long, other scents joined in, and Juniper knew her assumptions had been correct. Searing meat had always been one of her favorite smells, no matter what seasonings you put on it. She took a deep breath and let herself slowly relax, even as two men entered the bar, flanked on one side by a single, well-dressed lady.

She looked all three of them up and down. The two men wore similar clothes — fancy, but worn in places — and one had a hat. The one with a hat wore his beard trimmed close to his jaw, while the other one had only stubble.

The woman's dress was fine as fine could be, decorated with falls of lace at her elbows and a high collar that was pinned through with a brooch of a flying bird set with what looked to be turquoise. She didn't look entirely happy with the situation, either, which was what got her attention.

Arthur and John hadn't noticed. They hadn't even taken up their drinks, like they were waiting for Dutch to show up before they took another sip.

Juniper pushed away from the bar and headed over in their direction. The men were big, so they didn't pay her much mind. She was a tiny thing, even shorter than the lady in her pretty dress, and narrow as a switch. It was the woman who took notice of her, which wasn't any sort of surprise.

After traveling so long with the Van der Linde gang, she knew how to spot a woman in distress. She knew how to work these things out, too.

"Good evening, gentlemen," Juniper began, rocking back onto one of her heels as they passed her by. Catching up to them was easy, seeing as they were shaping up to be big lumbering fools. "Barkeep's in the back making up dinner."

The man with the beard looked at her, one of his brows cocked high on his forehead. "Why're you botherin' us?"

"Just wanting to help you out," she said smoothly. "You might be in for a wait."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Arthur turn his back on his lager in favor of watching Juniper with a look she was more-than-familiar with. That slight narrowing of Arthur Morgan's pretty blue eyes meant, 'What the hell are you doing, woman?'

"Don't care," the other man spat. He had a slightly leaner look about him. One of those men who you just _know_ carries a shank.

Juniper gave a shrug before circling back to John and Arthur at the bar. Her eyes didn't leave the woman for a second, no matter where she went in the room. The group eventually settled down at one of the empty tables. There were two chairs, leaving one of them to stand. He leaned against the wall beside the window, glancing every now and then through the dirty glass.

"What're you doing?" Arthur whispered. He gave the saloon his back and picked up his lager, throwing back a good quarter of it before setting the glass back down to wipe at his upper lip. "I don't remember Dutch giving us orders to start shit with anyone who comes in."

"To be fair, you are getting old and forgetful."

Arthur wasn't the kind of man who'd smack a woman, but he sure as hell was willing to smack John Marston upside his thick skull.

The impact wasn't anything too loud, so John laughed it off easily enough, ducking his head down, trying not to make it obvious to Arthur that it smarted. All the while, Juniper kept her eyes level on the woman. She kept her hands in her lap and her eyes focused on the grain of the table. The men at the table waited. Everyone was just waiting. The slow crawl of time was miserable.

"I'm going talk to her." Juniper pushed away from the bar only to have the sleeve of her jacket caught up by John's hand. "Don't."

"Could say the same to you."

"There's something wrong, John." Her voice took on an edge, one that said she wasn't moving. She was short, but she was stubborn as a mule. Everyone knew better than to tell her she shouldn't or couldn't do something. "I'm going see."

John let go just as Juniper gave her arm a tug. The momentum nearly made her stumble.

"Ass," she grumbled, situating her jacket back onto her shoulders before making off in the direction of the three strangers. John was a bastard, but funnily enough, she liked that about him. He was never cruel for the sake of it unless the person deserved no less.

Once Juniper arrived at the table, she planted both hands unceremoniously onto its surface. She stood across from the woman, whose big brown eyes snapped up to hers. Pinched pupils with a circle of bright white around them. There was a moment where Juniper swore she saw her mouth a word or two, but she wasn't any good at reading lips.

"I have a question for you, gentlemen."

The bearded man leaned forward in his chair. His shift towards her left their faces closer together than she would've liked. Juniper could taste chewing tobacco in the air she breathed.

He leaned in close and looked her right in her eyes and said, "Fuck off."

"It's just a simple question," Juniper offered. Not grinding her teeth into a fine powder and spitting a wad of the stuff into his eye took everything she had. She didn't know she had that kind of self-control until that exact moment. "All I need's a simple answer."

For a moment, she thought the man would either lash out at her or ignore her. Just for a moment, though.

"Fine." He glanced in the direction of his friend, who still stood a few feet away, glancing furtively out of the window. "What's your question?"

"What's that woman's name?"

Juniper saw the woman open her mouth, but she stopped her with a gesture. The man leaned against the wall looked over, making the briefest eye contact with the other before tightening one of his fists. Surprisingly enough, it was the big, ugly one who balked at the question.

He didn't answer her because answering her question would've sent her back to the bar. All he asked her was, "What's it matter to you?"

Juniper looked over to the woman. In the past few moments, she had paled considerably save for the pin pricks of color high on her cheeks. She stared up at her with a mixture of terror and awe.

That expression was what unsheathed the knife riding on Juniper's belt and drove it between the thug's forefinger and thumb, right in the juiciest part of his hand.

Men wore their beards long in Valentine.

Behind her, she heard Arthur groan a weary, "Oh, God damnit, girl," but she heard him crack a handful of knuckles, too.

Arthur and John's willingness to fight by her side wasn't a worry of hers. They were loyal almost to a fault when it came to the people in the gang, even the awful ones. If someone jumped off a moving train, everyone else would jump right alongside them and tend to the wounds later. That was their life. It wasn't complicated, but it wasn't easy, either.

The thug bellowed rather than screamed in pain, lashing out at Juniper with one of his meaty fists. She ducked under the blow and gave the butt of her blade a good smack, driving it deeper into the unfinished wood.

Rather than reaching for one of the pistols he wore, the man by the window rushed forward, snatching the woman up around her waist.

The way the woman fought answered another question for Juniper. It also distracted her from the man's second swing, which clocked her in the jaw hard enough to make her see stars. She grunted, hurling herself out of his reach.

It would bruise something nasty, but she didn't care.

"Make sure that squirrelly fucker doesn't get away!"

John lunged in the direction of the one dragging the woman away, while Arthur's attention wheeled around to the one who was bleeding profusely from his hand. There was no grabbing for a gun, not with an injured right.

Juniper rubbed at her jaw.

While the man hadn't screamed — not when she stabbed him _or_ when he worked the blade out of the tabletop — the woman's voice rose shrill enough to shatter in her throat. She screamed and clawed at the sleeve of the man's jacket, working her legs back and forth as if she was trying to keep her head above water.

No one made it to the front doors of the saloon. Not because of Juniper, not because of Arthur or John. But because the swinging doors parted and let in a freshly scrubbed Dutch van der Linde. Dressed head to toe in a suit that wasn't his, hair damp and cheeks bathwater-warm.

It took Dutch all of a moment to assess the situation, even shorter than that to unholster one of his pistols and slam it into the back of the man's skull.

He dropped like a sack of rice, and so did the lady he was carrying.

She scrambled back, away from the man's unconscious body and away from Dutch, looking between them as if she wasn't sure what to do.

"Come now," he said. His words were as even and measured as they always were. As he spoke, he approached her one step at a time, hands held out in front of him. He looked harmless, but everyone knew otherwise. Everyone except her. "I have no intention of harming you, miss. Only saving you. Now, what's your name?"

She blinked, wetting her lips.

"Charlotte Glanville."

English, proper London English.

"I would love to hear you tell me about these men, Miss Charlotte," Dutch said, extending one of his hands in order to help her up onto her feet. When she gave him one of her own, he did just that. "After my friend here brings them both to the sheriff, of course. Rowdy bunch."

Rowdy bunch.

Juniper laughed and worked her tongue around her teeth, tasting iron.

"It'll be no problem, Dutch," Arthur said. He leaned forward, looking into the face of the man he held in a grapple. "You gonna come easy? Or do you want to keep fighting? It's up to you, partner."

The man sneered, but didn't say anything. He stayed silent until Arthur had nearly dragged him out of the door.

"Bronte'll find you."

Arthur shoved him out of the batwing doors before he could say another word, but what he'd gotten out seemed to have spooked the woman more than the fighting had. She stepped closer to Dutch, as if she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was going to protect her.

Maybe he would. Juniper had seen him take people on for less.

"Don't worry yourself about that, miss." Dutch guided her over to the table without blood spilled over its surface, and she went willingly, her hands fretting and eyes stuck on the door. "I don't much care for kidnappers. Neither does my friend there. Don't you, June?"

Juniper wiped the bloody blade off on her trousers before sheathing it and making her way over.

"I most certainly do not, Dutch."

Out of the corner of her eye, Juniper watched as the barber stood from where he'd been cowering behind his chair. Whether or not the owner of the establishment was even going to charge them for damages, she wasn't sure. He hadn't come out from the back to witness the commotion.

Likely as anything, he was just used to the fighting.

Dutch pulled out a chair for Charlotte. She took it, her thanks quietly spoken. Her limbs arranged themselves neatly, like a girl who was used to making herself smaller.

Now that she didn't look so damn scared, Juniper could see that she was a beauty from her upturned nose to her plump cheeks.

Whatever this Bronte wanted with her, Juniper wagered that she wouldn't like that, either.

"So," Dutch said as he settled down into the chair opposite her, hands laced together on top of the table. "About these men who kidnapped you."

Charlotte took a deep breath, and then, she told them everything.


	3. Charlotte I

Dutch van der Linde seemed like an honest enough man.

But of late and through no uncertain terms, Charlotte learned not to trust honest-looking men. Men who dressed well, men who combed their hair, men who spoke and carried themselves like gentlemen — they were snakes. All of them.

Gratitude nestled itself in her chest. She wanted to dust it off, to shoo it away, but she knew herself well enough to know that it wouldn't budge unless she repaid Dutch and his what they were owed. Juniper, the wild-eyed redhead who took that first step in rescuing her, deserved compensation. Whether they would take it or not, she wasn't convinced either way. Two of them looked keen enough to rob her themselves, not that she had much to offer them.

The older gentlemen had a tired, but gentle way about him. There were frayed strings along the hem of his trousers and the fabric of his shirt was threadbare in places, a little faded. He could use some money to get himself something new to wear.

Then, there was Dutch, who looked rich as Croesus compared to the others. She had no idea what she could give him to compensate him for all he'd done.

The thugs would be paid once they delivered her to Saint Denis, not before. They carried enough money to pay for a train ride from Valentine to the city where Angelo Bronte was waiting for her, liquor for the trip, and a handful of dollars to spend on the way.

Charlotte had even less than that, given you didn't count her mother's brooch pinned on the high collar of her blouse. She couldn't part with that.

Reaching up, she curled her fingers around the brooch as she stared across at Dutch van der Linde, as if one of them was already preparing to steal it right from her grasp. The smooth corners pressed into the softness of her palm, and the silver stuck out at her like tiny, open mouths, inlaid with pretty drops of turquoise.

"I did nothing to him," Charlotte continued, her words crackling on her tongue. Still, she did not cry. That was a small victory. "I don't owe him money. I haven't wronged any of his men, or any of his many businesses."

She swallowed hard, stamping down the fear that curdled in her stomach.

"He had no reason to track me down when I was only attempting to make a life for myself."

Dutch leaned back in his chair, one hand on the table and the other on his knee. "What a truly heart-breaking story, Miss Charlotte," he said. Scraps of genuine sympathy clung to his words. They were plastered on rather haphazardly. "I am glad we crossed paths when we did."

She hummed her agreement, fingers curling tighter around her brooch. The pain of clutching onto it was a flicker at the back of her mind.

"This husband of yours…" Juniper said, leaning forward until the ragged ends dragged over the surface of the table. "Sounds like he got you into this mess. That's all gamblers are good for, if they don't have any sense."

Charlotte sighed. "Perhaps."

Forcing her hand away from her throat, she straightened her back as much as she could with her aching muscles. The brute dropped her, certainly, but more than that, she'd gotten enough of a scare to coil her up like a spring. There was no doubt in her mind that she would ache for days after. Her voice was no better from all the screaming. Whether it would still by hers to use by morning would be decided in her sleep.

If she ever allowed herself a moment with her eyes closed after everything.

"This Bronte feller sounds like he'll track her down just about anywhere," Juniper said. Her attention shifted to Dutch, who stared up at her thoughtfully, but Charlotte didn't take her eyes off of the woman speaking. "She won't be safe in this town or any other."

"And if allowed her to come with us tonight, she very well might lead them directly to our family."

Juniper worked her lips together, jaw tight. Under her freckles and under the dirt, the tops of her cheeks were red. She glanced in Charlotte's direction once or twice before finally making one last attempt at convincing him.

"If we keep killing 'em, he'll stop sending 'em."

Dutch let go of a long sigh, like a disappointed father. Charlotte knew that sigh better than most.

"If Bronte — whoever this man is — has enough pull in Saint Denis to send his men all over creation to find this one woman for seemingly petty reasons," he explained, "then it stands to reason that he may have the influence to bring what few freedoms we have left to ruin."

Whatever hope buoyed inside of her sank as she watched him, watched the determined set of his brow, watched as he made his decision and as it became almost immovable as stone.

Reaching up to her throat, Charlotte unpinned the brooch that sat there. She set it down onto the table, right in front of him. The winding silverwork glittered in the lamplight. And while the stones did not glitter merrily in quite the same way, they were beautiful.

Convincing.

"His reasons aren't as petty as you think. I know the location of a safe." She struggled around the words. Her throat felt as if it'd been mauled, and unpinning that brooch was as good as letting the wound bleed. "North of Saint Denis. That's where my husband kept everything he didn't need — valuables, jewelry, bonds. My dowry is stowed there, as well as what he stole from Bronte."

Interest softened Dutch's expression.

Men had been carving beautiful things from stone for thousands of years.

Dutch leaned farther back in his chair. His chest was too broad for his paisley suit; the fabric pulled at his shoulders and at the buttons cinched around his middle. The colors didn't suit him, either.

"Miss Charlotte, you are far more adept at negotiations than I was led to believe."

"I wasn't going to tell you," she admitted somewhat painfully, her eyes glued to the brooch on the table. Dutch did not reach for it. Juniper did not reach for it, either. It sat there on the table and drew no one's attention but her own. "When I left Saint Denis, I…"

Her voice cracked. When she lifted her fingers to her throat to soothe the ache, she could feel her pulse right beneath her skin. Her heart was hammering a quicker beat than she was used to, and she couldn't calm it.

"When I left Saint Denis, I thought I would rather die than give up that money." Charlotte ducked her head. The voices of her father, of her husband, of Angelo Bronte himself told her to stop. They cried out simultaneously, their words twanging and discordant. She silenced them with a sharp breath and pinched brows and a look of steely resolve. "But I can earn all of that back, in the end, as long as I am alive."

Dutch glanced around at the saloon's patrons. Some of them looked over in their direction, curious in the least invasive way someone could be curious, but he didn't seem to care much for that.

But it was nearing eight, and there weren't many places to be alone in a saloon. Privacy came at a premium.

"Saint Denis is a ways yet," Dutch said to Juniper, to John and Arthur. They stood nearby but didn't pry into the conversation. She understood why they might want to keep their noses out of Dutch's business. "I had no intention of traveling so far south."

He thumbed over the roundest part of his chin.

"What did your husband steal from Angelo Bronte?"

Charlotte swallowed hard, even if it felt like choking down sandpaper. She reached out and picked up her brooch, holding it in her palm rather than returning it to her high collar. She didn't want to tell him. She wanted to open her mouth and have a beautiful lie spill out.

"I don't know," she told him. "Archie never told me."

Dutch shifted forward on his seat, as if he was moving to stand. The stab of fear that gave her was what forced her long-fingered hand out in his direction, not far enough to grab him but close.

He stared down at her hand for a moment that lingered on long after it began, bordered on either side by the silence they shared.

The tune some stranger was playing on the piano was a jaunty thing she didn't recognize, but it followed the rapid pulse of her heart almost to the note. She struggled against the urge to pull her hand back, to apologize. Those weren't the words that found her.

She couldn't lie outright, but she could bluff.

"Whatever it was is worth tracking a widow across Lemoyne and well into New Hanover." The tremble in her hand went still, and Dutch planted his own flat on the table, peering across at her with the expectation of hearing more. "There's something worth killing for in that safe, and I'm the only person alive who knows where it is anymore."

For the longest time, Juniper stayed quiet. She stood there, arms folded over her chest, listening rather than watching. Even then, she didn't open her mouth. It was the older man — Arthur — who intervened.

"Come on, Dutch," he said, his voice a trickle of sense that Charlotte was grateful for. "You're makin' the poor girl squirm like a worm on a hook. Hasn't she been through enough today?"

Dutch didn't even look up at him when he spoke. His stare was focused on a single point — on Charlotte. "I have my reasons to be cautious."

"You've taken worse people for less," Arthur said. His words felt like a gentle push with both hands, like coaxing someone into taking that first step out into the winter cold. Whether or not Dutch would budge remained to be seen. "Useless people for less, too."

"How much do you believe resides is that safe of your husband's?"

Charlotte sat back in her chair and let her hand fall to her lap to join the other one, her fist still curled around the sharp wings of the bird. She shut her eyes, forcing herself to remember the money that never made it into their accounts, the jewelry that she was only allowed to wear once or twice before it disappeared. She tried to remember the value of her belongings and of what her father gave to him those few months back in return for enough money to pay off his debts.

One by one, piece by piece, she calculated everything she could recall, and when she opened her eyes, she stared across at Dutch with pleading brown eyes.

"It has to be at least three thousand dollars," Charlotte whispered. "I don't know how long he's had the safe or all that he put in it before we were married, though, so it could very well be thousands more besides."

Surprise ran through Dutch van der Linde and the members of his gang. They stood there, listening to her with a mixture of awe and avarice.

 _Is that enough_? she wondered. _Is everything Archer Lee ever kept secret enough to buy myself freedom from Angelo Bronte?_

"Prove yourself useful to me and mine, and you're more than welcome to join us," Dutch said with a surfacing cheer that didn't do much to ease her concerns. He moved to stand again, and this time, she didn't stop him. "I cannot promise it will be comfortable, but you won't be running from this Bronte gentleman."

There was something in the way he phrased that that tampered with the surge of hope she kept expecting.

You won't be running from Angelo Bronte, but you'll be running from everyone else.

Charlotte nodded and lifted herself up from her chair with as much delicacy as she could muster. The muscles in her legs trembled, threatening to give out, but she steeled herself. Dutch expected something from her. Strength of character, perhaps. Or strength of person. Either way, fainting from exhaustion on the floor of the saloon wouldn't be the most auspicious beginning to her time with the gang.

"Arthur, since you were so kind as to speak up for the woman, she'll be riding with you." Dutch smoothed back the tails of his coat. The movement was sharp and fringed with discomfort. "I'll meet the four of you outside the town once I have my things."

No one asked any questions. They listened to him and nodded and did as they were told. Charlotte had never been around a man like that, not in all of her life.

Arthur stepped up beside Charlotte. He was a tall man, but there wasn't a thing about him that struck her as intimidating. Capable and likely dangerous, but she didn't feel fear when he stood beside her.

"Do you have much experience with horses, miss?"

"A little." Charlotte pinned the brooch to her collar and tried to ignore the sharp pangs that radiated through her hand. Her palm was sore from gripping onto it, the skin torn in the fleshiest part of her hand from its beak. "I had a horse for riding around Saint Denis, but I didn't have much time with her."

"Amaranth has a steady gait," Arthur told her once Dutch had passed the swinging doors. "He's big, but he's careful. You shouldn't have any trouble."

Leaving Smithfield's felt as if God himself had reached down from the clouds and lifted the weight of the world from her shoulders, even if she still had trouble conquering the few wooden stairs on her weak legs. She squinted at the ground and lifted up handfuls of her skirt to keep the scalloped ends from dragging in the mud.

So distracted was she by keeping herself relatively clean that she didn't notice when Arthur unhitched his horse.

The enormous creature's face loomed in front of hers when Charlotte glanced up, giving her another start that nearly drove her to the ground. On a second look, she saw how pretty the horse was with its long strawberry blond mane and a coat of red and silver that looked like stippling across canvas.

Amaranth's ears pricked forward, which calmed her somewhat. Still, she looked to Arthur for advice, her brows pinched upward in question.

"Go ahead," he murmured as he ran a heavy hand through Amaranth's long mane. The horse lifted his massive head and shook out his long hair, almost as if he was showing off. "He's just about the friendliest horse you'll meet. 'Specially out of our lot."

Charlotte moved around to stand beside Amaranth. When she ran her fingers along his neck, she found that he was just as soft as he looked, even dusty from the road. The power that lay beneath his skin in the shape of corded muscle was just as impressive. Her worries were sated. At least, for a time.

Arthur scooted up on his saddle, clearly making as much room for Charlotte as he could. Given the state and size of her, she was worried she'd never climb onto the creature's back. There weren't many men who could pick her up without snapping something in their backs. Archie tried once, and it left him bedridden and miserable for days.

"Do you suppose someone nearby has a ladder?" she asked him, head tipped to the side as she tried not to sound as unsure as she felt.

"A ladder?" Arthur laughed under his breath and gave his head a shake. "Come here, girl."

Watching him lean over and reach for where she stood, Charlotte went still in a moment of panic. If Arthur fell off of his horse or strained something, it would be awfully embarrassing. Everyone in the gang would know her only as the plump woman who nearly broke Arthur's back in two. She couldn't deal with that.

His hands tucked under her arms, and the panic she felt rang outward from her chest. Her words were lost to it, leaving her to only make a short, concerned sound as she clutched onto Arthur's shoulders.

He lifted her as if she was willowy. Panic became something else entirely — a flustered delight that felt out of place considering all that had happened since that morning.

She didn't have time to think on it overmuch, however, as the moment she was settled and as secure as she ever would be, Arthur set Amaranth off at a comfortable trot.

Charlotte wound her arms around Arthur's waist and watched as the town she hoped to call her new home moved by at a steady pace. There wasn't much to be said about Valentine. There were only a dozen or so buildings and only two or three times as many people at any given time of day. Metropolitan, Valentine was not, but upon taking the train up north, Charlotte entertained a few fantasies about the life she might have led there.

Getting attached to those fleeting, watercolor dreams had been ridiculous, but she could hardly help herself. Her heart was broken by her father in London. Her trust, shattered in Saint Dennis.

What was left for her out west, except for a simple life?

Not that she thought even for a moment that life with the Van der Linde gang would be simple. Life in Valentine, maybe, but with a bunch of outlaws, she was only safe as long as the money she promised was ahead of them. The moment the combination was cracked, she feared that her usefulness would come to a sudden and tragic end.

Charlotte grabbed onto her own wrist and held tight.

The three of them slowed. Juniper rode a sprightly Arabian, while John's horse was almost as big as Amaranth. They made for a strange-looking bunch, which only became more apparent when they were joined by Dutch on the prettiest horse Charlotte had ever seen.

Dutch had changed in the short while since she'd last seen him. What he wore suited him, unlike that overwhelming mess he donned before. He was a man who wore blacks and reds well, and he sat upon the back of his horse like a king rather than an outlaw.

As he passed to the front of the group, Charlotte caught a flush in his cheeks. Either the ride to meet them had been invigorating, or he'd brushed elbows with someone of interest.

"Careful with her, Arthur," Dutch warned as he took his place up front, speaking to him without looking back over his shoulder. "We don't want her to fall."

"No, we don't."

Charlotte clutched onto her wrist and held firm, her thighs tensing as they began to move again. She hoped she wouldn't fall. She hoped she wouldn't drag Arthur down into the dirt path, either.

Unable to focus on anything else when Amaranth picked up speed, she pressed her face into the back of Arthur's coat and squeezed her eyes shut.

What she couldn't see, she could smell. They passed a farm that filled her nose with a fresh, barnyard scent, and they passed a sprawling field of wildflowers. She breathed in time with the pound of Amaranth's hooves. Every time she inhaled, she caught another picture of what might be spreading out all around them.

Every time the horse landed through his stride, Charlotte bounced, and every time Charlotte bounced, she felt a pain shoot up her back. She wasn't meant to cling to someone on the back of a warhorse. She was meant for carriages, for leisurely rides through town.

As she sat there, clinging to Arthur, praying to God that she would stay on the horse, the others conversed. Charlotte didn't pay them much mind, but she did her best to memorize the names that passed between them — Hosea, Grimshaw, Edwin, Pearson. Juniper mentioned a Bill, while John said something about a Victor.

Life was a dime novel, she realized in between Valentine and the clearing they called Horseshoe Overlook.

Life wasn't a winding tale told by George Eliot, not for her, not anymore.

Fate passed between the hands of men even still — William Glanville, Archer Lee, Angelo Bronte, Dutch van der Linde. And what was she worth? More than a dime, perhaps, but there was no one there to show her that she was worth more than hundreds or thousands of dollars, that she wasn't a price to be paid.

Charlotte worked at the ache in her jaw and fought back the tears that rose in the back of her throat. She didn't want to leave Arthur tear-stained.

She hadn't shed a single tear by the time they reached the camp. Someone shouted out at them a warning, "Who is it?" from deep in the foliage. It was Dutch who confirmed that it was them, and the man said nothing else.

"We're here, Miss Charlotte," Arthur said as Amaranth plodded up a worn path to the camp. She could see the warm light of a few, well-kept fires, as well as a few covered wagons and even more tents. Everywhere she looked, there were either people or horses. Some of the men and women wore smiles. Some japed with each other, while some sat alone, isolated and quiet. There were no gunshots. There was no blood. "I'll let you down once I hitch my horse."

She opened her mouth to thank him, but nothing came out save a quiet rasp.

After an hour of not using her voice during the ride, it had deserted her completely.

Charlotte gave his shoulder a pat rather than forcing the issue. When he glanced over his shoulder to see if she was alright, she rubbed a hand over her throat. That got the point across well enough.

Once they arrived at one of the free hitching posts, Arthur slid down from his saddle and reached up to help her to the same. The moment her boots hit the ground, her knees nearly buckled again. She was lucky that Arthur hadn't quite let go of her yet. He stared down at her with the a worried, almost fatherly expression.

"We need to get you a chair," he muttered to himself before looking around to see if there was anyone nearby.

John was already gone, and Juniper was trailing behind Dutch, waving her hands about something Charlotte couldn't hear. There was only a few of them within earshot — a beautiful woman with golden ringlets set around her face and a man with a bow on his back. One of them couldn't hold her up even if she wanted to, while the other looked sturdy enough for the job.

"Charles!"

They hadn't mentioned a Charles on the road.

He moved where he was called and without complaint. His hair was longer than any she'd ever seen on a man, as straight as a board and black as coal. The woman had been beautiful, but so was he.

"This here is Miss Charlotte," Arthur told him, indicating the woman standing in front of him with a nod of his head. Charlotte watched as Charles looked her over, from the top of her head to her muddy shoes. "She's had a hell of a day, so if you could help her into camp, that'd be much appreciated."

Charlotte didn't care for being passed between hands, but she was grateful for the help. Grateful enough to manage a small smile when Charles curled a supportive arm around her waist.

"Hello."

His voice was low. She felt it more than heard it from where she stood, half-leaned against him.

While she couldn't find it in herself to speak to Arthur, it seemed wrong not to say something to the man beside her, whether in introduction or in apology. She tipped her head up to look at him. There was only an inch or two difference between them.

"Thank you," she rasped. The sound was so horrible that she scrunched her face. When she spoke again, her voice was even worse. It crackled uselessly, unable to find a sound that wasn't that of a squeaking door. "Oh, good heavens."

Charlotte laughed, though the sound was mostly lost somewhere between where it began and her teeth. She choked out a quiet, "Awful," and took her first step towards the chair Arthur had pulled out for her.

Though she ducked her head in embarrassment, she caught a sliver of a smile on Charles's face before she did.

They both helped her down onto the chair, though it was Arthur who lingered for a while to make sure she was comfortable. Not that he said so exactly. She could tell from the way he looked at the chair and her dress and the general state of her. He didn't budge until she gave him a pat on his arm and told him, "It's okay."

And then, she was alone, perched on a splintering wooden chair that had seen more rain in its life than she had in hers.

Charlotte stared into the camp, hands folded neatly in her lap, and thought of the safe. She thought of the old plantation house where it was buried. She thought of what lay inside and what it had purchased for her, in a way.

Freedom was a strange thing.

To her, freedom was being able to afford canvas and pigments. Freedom was a soft pillow and the warmth of a blanket. Freedom was the roll of dice, the churning musculature of a horse, the death of fear.

Charlotte gulped down a shallow breath. She hoped she would find a place with the Van der Linde gang.

Hope was the pretty hat that sat upon freedom's head.

After everything, Charlotte was surprised she could still wear it.


	4. Madelaine II

By the end of June, Madelaine knew most of the Van der Linde gang by face or name.

Their leader, Dutch, was the Saints Hotel's most frequent customer, though he never stayed behind for more than a bath. Arthur Morgan rented out a room every now and then, and so did a charming fellow by the name of Javier. She heard stories about some of the others. They were always funny little things, snippets of a life she couldn't dream of having.

To Madelaine, having a soft place to rest her head after long hours of hard work was what kept her on her feet and kept her positive.

The concept of running all the time just made her tired.

Still, she enjoyed hearing about them all. Arthur in particular had a lot to say about a man called John Marston, who seemed more of a little brother to him than a fellow gang member. There was talk of snow up to their knees, of an unlucky horse and a pack of wolves, of the poor man's mauled face. She listened to Arthur talk about the concerned fury John's lady brandished at him and the soft-spoken doctor who cared for his plentiful wounds when the yelling was done. She loved to read, but there was something about hearing an account from someone who'd been there that left her breathless.

"Do you deal with that sorta thing all the time?" Madelaine asked him once.

Arthur just looked at her for a moment, his blue eyes worn so soft, before chuckling. "Well, that's our life. Happens every day."

That made a certain kind of sense.

Tucking a bundle of sunshine yellow bedding over one of her arms, Madelaine hurried up the stairwell to one of the few unoccupied rooms with that and a basket of cleaning supplies in tow. Summers were always busy in Valentine, what with all the cattle coming through and the weather growing milder, but in the few years since she began working for Mister Hughes, she'd never seen so many people passing through.

There always seemed to be a bed that needed making or a head that needed scrubbing. Everyone took their turn at different jobs, but only a few of them were allowed to give baths. Evelyn was too prickly; she didn't have the manner that was needed for such work, which left Madelaine's hands pruned more often than not. She enjoyed whatever time she had to herself in the bedrooms.

The huge chests that stood at the foot of each bed left the rooms smelling of pine. Heaters kept the space warm well into the morning, even after the fires were extinguished to be cleaned. There was nothing uncomfortable about her surroundings, no matter how busy things were.

As she was tucking into one of the empty rooms, she heard a clatter of footsteps up the stairwell behind her.

Madelaine turned on a dime, holding the sheets at her back and putting on her most pleasant expression for the patrons. One of them just looked like any other man — dark hair and a mustache with a flushed and almost weasely demeanor. The other was a woman with golden ringlets piled around a pretty face and a delighted shine in her eyes. Delighted and mischievous. She knew that look.

When the young woman passed, their eyes met. Something familiar reached out to her, like something on the wind you couldn't quite get a taste for or put a name to. It was there, but she couldn't quite reach out far enough to get a hold on anything.

Madelaine turned once the patrons were crowded against one of the bedroom doors, stepping into the empty room she was meant to clean, thinking of the woman's face and the color of her hair and that feeling of familiarity that followed under her feet like a shadow. She'd never seen her before, but maybe she knew someone similar? Maybe she heard about her through other folks in Valentine?

Or, maybe she'd seen her at the saloon once or twice.

She didn't lock the door when she made sure to shut it; there was nothing worse than trying to unlock a door with your arms full of soiled bedding. No one made that mistake more than once.

The last occupant hadn't made a horrible mess of things, at least. The commode hadn't been used, just the piss pot, and he hadn't wrecked the bedding. From the look of things, he hadn't even slept there overnight. That didn't mean she could just smooth out the sheets and be on her way. It meant she didn't have to scrub and didn't have to call up Mister Hughes to have the mattress emptied and stuffed again.

As she began to strip the bed, Madelaine heard a giggle and something akin to a squeal.

Even in the coldest months, there wasn't a lack of _that_ happening in the Saints Hotel. Between men and women, men and men, and even the occasional pair of female sweethearts — there was no shortage of petting going on behind closed doors when someone wasn't along. She didn't know what it was about a hotel that got everyone so fired up, but she didn't complain. She didn't have any reason to.

Another laugh was followed up with a thump that damn near rattled the framed drawing of a harebell off of the wall.

There was no making out particular words, but she didn't need to understand what was being said to know what was happening. The look that Madelaine caught on the woman's face wasn't one that spoke of how interested she was in her suitor. No, she was more interested in the platinum chain that dangled from his pocket and the fine leather of his hat.

At the very most, she was only interested in how well he could fuck.

Madelaine pulled the bedsheets together into the center of the bed, making a bundle out of the bright yellow fabric before setting the new set of sheets down beside it. The room needed a little dusting, needed a new flower for the vase, and the window panes needed to be wiped down, but other than that, there wasn't much that needed doing. Considering the state of the last room she'd been given, this was heavensent.

No more than ten minutes passed before she was halfway done with her cleaning and the thumping and laughing had turned into rushed moans. The woman's giggling deepened to something throatier. There wasn't much talking happening, either. Not anymore.

Tucking the rag she used to dust the mantle through her belt, Madelaine took a moment to sit down on the unmade bed. A twinge of pain ran up her back, branching out near her shoulder like a bolt of lightning. She rubbed both of her hands over the muscles. The pressure helped, even if she could barely feel it through the layers of her clothes. The shirtwaist she wore was thin enough, but her corset was old and thick and not at all well-made.

Her head sunk forward as she let go of a slow breath, drawing it out for as long as she could without gasping.

She sucked in another and straightened her back, no doubt looking like a chicken with her arms pinned back and her head held high. The image pulled a laugh out of her, but as soon as the sound slipped past her teeth, there was a crash in the room beside her.

The hair at the back of her neck stood on end, and as her arms sank to her sides, she listened. She strained to hear the next sound that would come, but there was nothing for a long while. Nothing but the squeak of carriages down on the road, the nickering of horses, the ebb and flow of conversation.

Until…

A voice rose above it all, rich and masculine and furious, and Madelaine snapped up onto her feet almost too quickly. She clutched onto the bed's frame to steady herself before launching forward, every part of her work forgotten.

The moment she pushed through the door, the man shouted again. That time, there was a crash rather than a thump, and when the woman yelled back at him, she didn't sound entirely helpless. But that didn't mean anything. Misplaced bravery in the face of another person's anger wasn't uncommon, in her experience, and it often got someone hurt or killed.

Madelaine didn't want to clean blood-soaked floorboards. She didn't want to talk to the sheriff any more than she had to, either.

Stopping in a flurry of skirts, she reached for the doorknob with a hand that was shakier than she realized. The tendons at the back of her hand tensed and released, fingers curling and twitching where they floated above the tarnished copper. Her heart hammered faster and faster, everything in her heart telling her to open the door, but her hand only landed upon the knob when she heard the woman's bellow turn into a panicked scream.

Madelaine leaned into the door, desperately twisting at and shaking the doorknob to no avail.

Locked.

Of course the door was locked.

"Unlock this door!" she yelled, yanking the knob to the right, then to the left. It didn't even budge. Any thought spared toward the other patrons was left at her feet; no one in that hotel mattered save for the woman on the other side of the door. "You betta unlock this door right now!"

The woman hollered again, but the sound of her voice was cut off with a hollow _thump_ that turned Madelaine's stomach.

"Please!"

Madelaine shoved her shoulder into the door. The doorknob held, but the wood itself shifted just a little. A searing pain curled over her shoulder, as if she'd leaned into a bonfire, and she bit down on her bottom lip to keep from whining about it.

Futility didn't hit her often. She was just trying to get by, working day in and day out, making just enough money from washing and cleaning and sewing to keep herself fed. There was nothing sad about that, nothing worth crying over. But sometimes, she missed living in a world where she didn't have to fight down a door to save a woman from getting herself killed. Sometimes, she wanted nothing more than to turn back time and be a little girl again, in dewy Louisiana, with a mother, a father, and a life outside of her work.

She leaned back, preparing herself for the burst of pain that would come from trying to force the door open again, but before she could make contact, she heard someone charging up the stairwell. Their heavy footsteps caught her attention; it was the walk of someone who understood what was happening.

Madelaine turned toward the sound only to see Arthur Morgan mount that last step and make it onto the landing.

The sight of him pushed something into place — a cheeky young woman with golden curls, freckles over her nose and chin, and a laugh that was as loud as it was sharp. Arthur told Madelaine about her once, and she featured in more than a few of his stories. Javier mentioned her, too, though he never shared many details about the others. Just their names.

Karen.

"She's in here," Madelaine told him, stepping back to give the much larger man the room he needed to muscle into the room and keep the worst from happening. Rubbing at her shoulder, she watched as he did just that. Arthur planted one foot on the ground and kicked with the other, splintering the frame of the door on impact. "I think she's alright, but I couldn't know for sure! Should I run and get the sheriff?"

Arthur looked back at her only once. His brow laid heavily over his eyes to match the harsh set of his jaw. When he spoke, he was short and to the point, as if each word was a waste of his breath. "Don't need no sheriff."

With another kick of his boot, shards of wood flew, and the door swung open.

The man stood in the center of the room, stripped down to long underwear. His cheeks were painted the same red as his knuckles, the sight of which left Madelaine blanched of color herself. The room was in shambles. An upturned chair lay haphazardly against the wall, one of its legs cracked at the base. Yellow sheets spilled from the bed and onto the floor, so torn in places that it looked as if a cougar had spent the night. A few drops of blood darkened the floorboards.

Sprawled at his feet was Karen, clutching her jaw and staring up at Arthur as he approached without sparing a word to her or her attacker.

"I done paid for the room _and_ the girl!" the man shouted, his voice carrying out of the door, down the hallway, and into the lobby. "Get out of here!"

Arthur strode forward without hesitation. "I can bet you ain't paid to beat her."

Madelaine followed in his wake. She didn't pay any mind to what followed, to the back and forth between the men. Every scrap of her attention was laid upon Karen, who didn't seem to understand why she was helping her.

"You've gotta stand up, chère," she whispered to her as the two men lashed out at each other. Another wave of panic threatened to seize her, but Karen needed patience after getting smacked like that. She had to sort through a few things before getting her legs to work. "Come on. I'll help you downstairs while your friend sorts out the rest, you hear?"

Karen dusted Madelaine's hands away from her arms. The expression she wore was a grateful one, even with the ache in her jaw, but aside from that, she wore pride. It took some effort, but she managed to stand without any more than the smallest of wobbles on her heeled shoes.

Just as soon as Karen was stable, the struggle was ended with another _thump_.

The man plummeted to the ground in a heap of bones and flesh. Another trickle of blood leaked from his nose onto the floor, just another mess to clean.

"The hell was this about?" Arthur said, turning on Karen in frustration more than anger. "You said you was gonna find some kind of diversion." He shook out his hand before straightening himself out. His voice softened, only an impression of its former rasp left behind. "You girls ain't nothing but trouble."

Karen's eyes shifted past Arthur's shoulder to Madelaine. There was a moment when she was convinced Karen wouldn't speak until she was gone, but that moment passed quickly enough.

"I'm just rusty, is all," Karen said, folding her arms over her chest. She looked as sullen as a scolded child with her full bottom lip poking out from the other. "I haven't tried playing a man in almost two whole months, you know."

Arthur let go of a sigh that shook his broad shoulders.

Then, nearly at the same time, he and Madelaine asked: "Are you alright?"

Their harmonizing made Karen snort around a laugh. She winced just after, rubbing at the growing bruise beside her mouth. "I'm fine," she insisted before taking her first step forward, stopping for a moment to give the fellow a sharp kick in his knee before leaving.

Madelaine listened to Karen's hitched steps as they faded down the hall and quieted even more once she made her way down the stairs. The urge to help nearly drove her to rush after the poor woman, but she gripped her own reins as tight as she could and stood there, quiet, watching as Arthur Morgan took account of the room. She couldn't tell if he was planning on paying for repairs or if he just intended to clear up any evidence of him or Karen being there.

She didn't know how outlaws operated.

She didn't think the Van der Linde gang was anything like the other operations in the area, but she didn't know enough about them to be sure.

"Thank you, miss." Arthur unbuckled his satchel with one hand and approached her with a clip of money between his index and middle finger. "Just… keep this. It ain't for the hotel." He jerked his chin in the direction of the man sprawled out on the floor, unconscious and bleeding. "Make him pay for the damages."

The clip held twenty dollars and some from what she could tell. No one had ever been so generous.

"I couldn't do nothin'," Madelaine murmured without looking up at him. He held out the money again, and she took it, holding the folded bills close to her chest. "You shouldn't give me this, Mister Morgan."

Arthur huffed quietly, setting his hand on her shoulder as he moved past her. "Your hollering got me up here quicker. You helped her as much as I did."

She opened her mouth to thank him, but he was already gone, leaving her alone with the piece of trash he just about killed. That didn't bother her any; Arthur struck her as the sort of man who didn't much like being thanked for anything.

Tucking the money into her belt, Madelaine stepped over the bunched up rug and out past the door that sat awkwardly on its hinges. She still had a room to clean, but that could wait until she spoke to Mister Hughes about the incident.

Madelaine knew the Saints Hotel's proprietor would be furious in his own way — the kind of way that put a man in tears the moment he was alone. That didn't frighten her. He was too gentle natured to raise his voice or blame her for what happened. What worried her was what would come next. The sheriff would visit. He'd question her, question the man, inspect the room. There wasn't much space in the hotel to begin with.

Money was bound to be a little shorter soon. At least she had the clip Arthur gave her.

Madelaine pressed her fingertips over where she knew it rested under her belt. She wondered if he had anticipated what would happen, if this was his way to apologize for all that happened and what would happen in the coming days.

He was a sweet-hearted man, and he could kick in a door like nobody's business.

She understood why all the ladies working at the Saints went silly when he was around.

* * *

Two days later, a new face arrived at Saints Hotel and asked for her by name.

It was Evelyn who told her the man was waiting in the bathing room on the first floor. She carried weighty purple bags under her eyes that even a bit of makeup couldn't hide, and Madelaine sympathized with her. The only reason she slept well enough at night was because of Mister Morgan's generosity.

"You're wanted in the bath downstairs," Evelyn said without looking up from her work the moment Madelaine stepped through the door that led in from out back. "He asked for you by name, so you best hurry up."

There wasn't a minute that passed from Tuesday to late Thursday when she hadn't been hurrying.

Still, she ducked out of the back of the hotel and asked Harvey to bring in two buckets of water as she always did. This time, there was no request for the oil from Penhaligon's, so she knew it wasn't Dutch asking after her.

 _More's the pity_ , she thought to herself as she folded a towel over her arm and made her way over to the room. _I don't know why I keep expecting him to show up_.

A gentle knock alerted the man inside that she had arrived, and when she opened the door, he stood there in his underthings, clearly uncomfortable with the situation. He was massive in size, larger than both Dutch and Arthur by more than a little, with an impressive beard and a receding hairline. None of that meant he wasn't handsome, however.

"Good afternoon, sir," Madelaine said with a cordial smile as she set the towel down on the seat of a chair pushed against the corner of the wall. "The water'll be in soon. Do you need help with anything?"

"You're Madelaine?"

The man's voice was higher than he expected. Reedy, even.

She turned to him, already nodding. "Yes, I'm Madelaine," she said. "You requested me, didn't you?"

"Yeah, just… gimme a —" He twisted away from her to rifle through his belongings. His long underwear was old and worn through on one of his knees, yellowed with age. It hugged his belly as he bent over. "I got somethin' for you."

One of Madelaine's brows rose. "You have something for me?"

"Yeah," he repeated himself. His rummaging grew more and more insistent until he finally found what he was looking for, leaving his muttered curses by the wayside as he stood and handed her a neatly folded slip of paper. "From Dutch."

The surprise that already sat on her face grew in size, forcing her eyes to widen. She took the slip of paper he offered her.

Rather than opening it right there, Madelaine looked across at him. She didn't know which of the stories belonged to this man. Neither Dutch nor Arthur had mentioned him in the past. Or, if they had, they neglected to describe him in any capacity. "What's your name?"

"Bill," Bill said. He set his hands high on his hips for a moment before dropping them to his sides, visibly uncomfortable with the situation at hand. She could tell it wasn't so much the letter as his state of undress and her unwillingness to leave. "Bill Williamson."

Madelaine nodded. Her fingers curled around one of the paper's folded corners.

"I heard what you did for Karen." Bill shifted on his feet. When Madelaine looked away to offer him some amount of privacy, she heard him let go of a relieved sigh. "Can't believe she let herself get caught like that."

"No man should ever lay his hands on a woman. Not like that." Madelaine cleared her throat. "I didn't do much, but I did what I could."

Setting the letter down beside the towel, Madelaine unbuttoned the sleeves of her shirt and began to roll them up to avoid dragging them through the water. She was nearly done when Bill interrupted her with a hoarse, "Now, you don't got to do that."

"Pardon me?"

"I'd rather bathe in peace, if you don't mind."

The request wasn't unheard of. Most of the time, Madelaine didn't do any more than facilitate the beginning of the bath — the soaps, the hot water, the drink of choice. Not many people asked for her help. They were either busy or cheap, and she didn't mind that. It gave her the opportunity to breathe and collect herself for once until someone put another job in her hands.

Before she left, Madelaine picked up the letter and held it tight enough to wrinkle in her hand.

Harvey met her in the hallway, looking about as ragged as everyone was feeling. She gave him directions, thanked him, and went on her way without any unnecessary exchange of words.

The Saints was just as busy as it always was in the summertime, even with one of the rooms unoccupied for fixing. Mister Hughes hated turning people away, but turn them away, he did. There was even one newly wed couple on a tour of New Hanover sharing a room with an old dowager who was passing through to Strawberry, simply because they had nowhere else to stay for the night.

She couldn't go anywhere without bumping into someone, nowhere except the hutch out back where everyone was busy washing bedsheets and laundering clothes for the ladies and gentlemen passing through.

The yard out back was muddier than ever. Even the wooden planks that ran through from the hotel to the front stoop of the house out back was wet with the stuff, dark and malleable near the center. It wobbled something awful as she crossed it and prayed to God that she didn't fall, thinking more of the letter she held at her side than her dress.

There was no one in the large room except for Viola. Both Evelyn and Ngoc were cleaning rooms, leaving the oldest of them to stir the giant buckets of water and lye and soaked through sheets as yellow as buttercups.

"What you got there, sweetheart?" Viola asked her from where she stood, leaned up against one of the sturdier chairs rather than sitting on it. In her hands, the paddle was quicker than anyone else could manage. "One of the boys slip you that?"

Madelaine laughed, even though her assumptions weren't wrong.

"I don't know what it is," she said, and that wasn't wrong, either. She didn't know the first thing about what the letter said. "He only delivered the letter; it's from someone else."

Viola made a sound that sat somewhere between understanding and disinterest.

While Madelaine had thought to be alone while she read the note, she knew that Viola's hearing wasn't the strongest, and if she whispered, it would be as if she was the only person for miles. There was something exciting about that. She smiled as she sat carefully on one of the uncomfortable wooden chairs.

The letter itself was far from perfect.

She smoothed out the wrinkles she made in the paper with her fingertips. The sheet was ripped on one side, torn from a book or a journal, and there were flecks of ink in places. Fountain pens could be temperamental in her limited experience with them. Lines of omission cut through a few words and fewer sentences.

"Miss Madelaine," the writing began. Dutch's handwriting was slender and tall, like the words had been stretched out purposefully. "I hope this letter reaches you within the week. Bill can be a trustworthy man when he deigns to be one. I hope he has not bothered you much upon delivery. I am afraid he does not fully understand the etiquette of bathhouses and the like, preferring as he does to wash in a basin or even a stream."

Bill didn't seem like such a bad fellow.

Dutch didn't seem to think so, either; there was a fondness to the way he wrote about him that was so clear, Madelaine could hear the warmth in his voice.

"I appreciate all that you have done for me and mine. Your patience and your skills are a fine thing to see in this day and age. The same can be said about your open-minded nature. I hope recent happenings at the Saints Hotel have not dissuaded you from thinking of us with a certain fondness."

Madelaine couldn't help but chuckle. He wrote as if they were all monsters and as if she had never seen a drop of blood in all her life.

"I sincerely hope that we will cross paths again soon. If I may say so, I find myself missing your conversation just as often as I find myself thinking of the glorious baths on offer at the hotel."

Charming.

Dutch van der Linde was charming in a way that almost set her on edge. Men like him were as dangerous as they were beguiling, and she'd wash the britches of a thousand laborers in summertime before she let herself leave behind her place at the Saints Hotel.

"Thank you for what you did for Karen, and thank you for not speaking of what happened to the sheriff. Our place here is tentative, even when we are on our best behavior. You have saved us from having to turn tail and run yet again. For that, I could not be more grateful." Madelaine wet her bottom lip, thumb trailing over the ripped corner of the page. "Warmest regards, Dutch van der Linde."

She folded the letter as neatly as she could manage, then folded it in half again, making the slip of paper small enough to tuck into her belt alongside the money she couldn't bear to part with. Even leaving it at her small home on the edge of town felt dangerous.

"So," Viola piped up from where she stood. Her tight curls were pulled away from her face and wrapped beneath a brightly dyed cloth, leaving her lined face as bare and open as it could possibly be. Reading her expression was easily done. "Now that I know that's a letter from some man, you just _have_ to tell me about what the fellow wrote. That look tells me it's interesting. No doubt."

All Madelaine offered her was a quiet, "He was thanking me," as she rose from the chair.

His gratitude wasn't misplaced. She could have easily given everything over to the sheriff. Names, if not locations. Faces, if not names. The fact of the matter was that she didn't. She didn't say a word when pulled out in front of the lawmen, and she wouldn't say a word if they asked her a thousand times more. The law in Valentine wouldn't do anything about them, anyway. Nothing short of contacting someone else to deal with them, which might just lead nowhere.

Madelaine knew better than anyone that officers of the law weren't meant to be trusted. There wasn't a soul wearing a badge from the East Coast to the West who could do anything about the Van der Linde gang, not even if she led them right to their doorstep.

Not that she wanted to.

There were men who passed through and only brought havoc to the good people of Valentine. From what little she knew of Dutch and his lot, they didn't seem to be that kind of gang. Making assumptions after only a few weeks was absurd. She knew that, but she couldn't help herself, either. Never before had she been tipped as generously as she was when it was Dutch or Arthur in the bath.

When they rolled into town, her ceaseless worries about making ends meet disappeared almost overnight. There was no way around the protective feeling she felt when it came to those men and women, even if it didn't make a lick of sense.

"Thanking you for what?" Viola asked, lifting the paddle from the water only to lean it against the side of the bucket to catch her breath.

Madelaine lifted one of her shoulders in a shrug. "I suppose I helped him," she said.

The smile that sat at the corner of her mouth was small, but present.


End file.
